Does everything happen for a reason?

ora_43

Wed, May 03 2017, 4:54 pm

amother wrote:

The bolded is what I struggle to understand. I think if we really believed that hashem is in complete control, and every single thing he does is 100% good, then then we wouldn't ask him to change the situation to something that we see more optimal.

In the physical world, Hashem makes good things, but leaves it to us to make them useful. Wheat into bread, olives into oil, whatever the heck goes into computers into my smartphone, etc.

Maybe there's something similar going on on a spiritual level. Ie, maybe sometimes the good is there, but we need to take some kind of spiritual action to make it useful.

Or maybe sometimes we need to change ourselves, in order to create the kind of world where a better outcome is possible. And prayer is part of that.

The above aren't answer-answers; just ideas floating around an overly-tired brain.

PinkFridge

Wed, May 03 2017, 5:40 pm

amother wrote:

So I actually DO feel scared to daven for things to be different, because I do believe that Hashem controls everything, and what would I know? So when I am in a crisis situation, I tend to start wanting to daven for something specific, but I am afraid to, or I think it is wrong, and I end up saying something like "please let me serve You better through this" or something equally general and pareve. Or if it's really bad "please take this test away I CAN'T anymore. I CAN'T!. Take it away or I'm outta here". I'd never actually do myself in. But asking for specific things I don't usually do. I that a bad approach?

I've quoted more than once from that great theological tract, Dov Dov and the Great Bicycle Race: Music

"It means so much/to me You see/Hashem please help me win/if it's good for me."

PinkFridge

Wed, May 03 2017, 5:43 pm

ora_43 wrote:

I like this. And I appreciate your immediate previous post.
Your first paragraph is a Rav Hirsch on the word "la'asos" in perek 2 of Bereishis (in Kiddush). Hashem created the world, and we are to use the materials to do and act.
There are parallels in the physical and spiritual worlds; what you write resonates.

debsey

Wed, May 03 2017, 6:11 pm

amother wrote:

[u]

I always appreciate your posts pink fridge, even though I often don't see it your way.
The bolded is what I struggle to understand. I think if we really believed that hashem is in complete control, and every single thing he does is 100% good, then then we wouldn't ask him to change the situation to something that we see more optimal. If I was on an airplane that was going thru turbulence, (I hate that!) it would never enter my mind to make a suggestion to the pilot as to how to help the situation. Am I going to compare my incredibly limited knowledge to that of the pilot? Ridiculous! Yet with hashem, where the disparity of "knowledge" between us and him is infinitely greater than between us and the pilot, we always have suggestions. Hashem I need this and that to work out. Why don't ANY of us simply say that hashem is in control and everything he's doing is pure good for us? How dare us humans daven for him to change his plans and leave hashem tips in his suggestion box?

Because Hashem gives us the power to do that, through prayer and mitzvos. He specifically tells us that we can pray and change His plan, and make His plan come to fruition through less painful or unpleasant means. The verb "L'Hispallel" - to pray - is in the reflexive form in Hebrew, which means to reflect on or change oneself. Through prayer, we become different, and then a different Plan attaches to us.

Yes, Hashem knows best. But "best" changes from moment to moment. And with our tefillos and our actions, we can influence what that "best" is going to be.

debsey

Wed, May 03 2017, 6:16 pm

amother wrote:

I guess it's hard for some to take comfort that "it's part of hashem's master plan, and it's good" when if we are being intellectually honest, it flies in the face of, and directly contradicts everything we know and understand about "good".

Intellectually is the only way we can understand it as "good." When we are in pain, our physical body or our emotions are screaming "NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD!" Only our intellect can help us through, remind us that Hashem has a plan and that plan is good, even if we can't always perceive it.

No one (sane) wakes up in the morning and says "Please Hashem make me suffer because then I'll grow from the challenge and will see the good in it eventually." But suffering people do try to find the meaning in their suffering, and many do.

I think that's one of the take home points from the article under discussion. When someone says to a sufferer "It's all part of G-d's plan, this is meaningful", it can feel like an assault and invalidation. When the sufferer comes to that realization on her own, it's a very different feeling and experience.

sequoia

Wed, May 03 2017, 6:26 pm

Everyone is (deliberately) missing the point.

I'm not talking about adults who are alive and who are able to have post-traumatic growth. That's great. No one is denying that it's possible to experience meaning and growth even in suffering.

Refer to my earlier post. Everyone steadfastly refuses to address it.

YOUR child. Kidnapped. Raped. Tortured. Dead.

Out of the options:
1. Things happen randomly

or

2. An omniscient, omnipotent Being could have prevented this and didn't. Allowed it to happen, in fact. Oh, and -- it's somehow "good",

which would you choose?

PinkFridge

Wed, May 03 2017, 6:54 pm

OK, Sequoia, here you go.
I believe in G-d.
Once I do, I believe in a G-d Who is omniscient and omnipotent.
If something happens, it's not random.
If something would ch"v to a loved one, I would make sure s/he gets all the spiritual support possible to help her/him process it and go on to live a fully meaningful life. This support would be highly specialized, and beyond my pay grade but you know where our starting points are.

debsey

Wed, May 03 2017, 7:44 pm

sequoia wrote:

sequoia, your command of English is quite good. I got your point the first time. But yes, choice 2 is the only possible one for me. Belief in Hashem as omnipotent means believing that He was completely present, at the Holocaust or at our own personal Holocausts. I completely reject Harold Kushner's thesis in "Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People" where he says G-d basically drops some of the balls some of the time. Nope, my choice remains Choice 2.

debsey

Wed, May 03 2017, 7:53 pm

sequoia wrote:

Ok. It's just you said you refuse to even to consider it, and went on to talk about alive and conscious adults.

I don't want to visualize it. Doesn't mean that if anything like that ever happened (and I've witnessed my kids suffering, some with serious things like chronic illness) I wouldn't choose choice2. I have enough experience with suffering to know that choice 2 is the only intellectually honest way for me to handle it.

marina

Wed, May 03 2017, 9:18 pm

sequoia wrote:

Truthfully, it's probably the first one. But the second one is psychologically infinitely more comfortable. As humans we always want to think there is some reason some good explanation for such horrors. Even if that means we have to believe a Being could have prevented it but didn't. That's how strong the need is- we even will accept such a flawed explanation.

PinkFridge

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:06 am

marina wrote:

And yet, choice 2 is what some will posit as the intellectual decision: once one accepts the existence of G-d, and not a limited G-d, that seems to be the logical next step.

ETA: just read Sequoia's post immediately previous to mine.
(And Sequoia, I'd love to discuss your [magnificently beautiful] 12:06 words to FF in light of this thread.)

PinkFridge

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:15 am

amother wrote:

Another thought:
We don't say, well, if Hashem wants me to have it He'll find a way to give it to us. We're not getting the mon and having all our needs taken care of anymore. We work. Of course, we know that while our hishtadlus is necessary we shouldn't go overboard. But work we do.

Tefilla is also hishtadlus for different needs. Forget also: it's the sine qua non. Because the underlying purpose of everything is for us to build a connection with Hashem.

ora_43

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:18 am

sequoia wrote:

On the contrary, option A is easier psychologically.

Could be a function of coming from a background of parental abuse. But it always seemed to me that one could bear anything as long as it was no one's fault. I thought all humans were like this; now you're telling me the exact opposite.

I don't think either is the psychological approach.

Different people are comforted by different things.

Some of it is personal background, like you said.

Although I also think to some extent what people find comforting generally has to do with 1. how much control they actually have over their own lives - financially, health-wise, etc, 2. how much the bad thing would be their own fault, if it wasn't part of a divine plan.

People who actually do have a fair amount of control over their own lives tend to prefer the "it's all random" approach because that works out well for them - as financially stable, healthy people, the natural path of events favors them. People who lack control tend to prefer the "Hashem's plan" approach - it's more comforting to think that it's out of their control but all part of the plan of a loving God, than that it's all out of their control and mostly in the hands of morally questionable human beings.

By #2 I mean like - if someone's child was playing in the street unsupervised and was chv"s hit by a car, "God's plan" is going to be more comforting than "I was irresponsible, and my child paid for it."

(eta - I think I made the above sound too much like a theory. I meant it more as like a "there are a few factors in what is psychologically easier, here is one" thing).

Last edited by ora_43 on Thu, May 04 2017, 1:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

debsey

Thu, May 04 2017, 11:33 am

marina wrote:

Viktor Frankl makes this point in Man's Search For Meaning. I don't think choice 1 is any more logical than Choice 2. I'm saying that Choice 2 is the only possible one that reconciles with Orthodox Jewish belief. Once you start from the standpoint of "I believe in an omnipotent G-d" it logically follows that difficult experiences and even evil is part of His plan. Otherwise, G-d isn't omnipotent.